How do you air dry your wood down to 20% ??

[Big J]

1 minute ago, Woodworks said:

Snag is most of us are limited on storage space and the main season for selling is short. Sure softwood dries far faster but we still cant sell, refill and sell again over the winter season. Delivery is a major cost and remains the same for either so maximising profit per load is relevant. And let's be honest there is fair difference in calorific value by volume and this has to be reflected in the price we sell at. The current high prices of softwood does not help matters either

 

 

The only real way around it is to sell green. I used to take a 7 cube load of larch/spruce to a customer in central Edinburgh twice a year. Really nice guy, background in forestry, so knew to dry it himself. I'd park the trailer under the conveyor outfeed, and the trailer was full in a little over an hour, if that. Easy money. I used to do that for about £55/cube delivered, if memory serves, a couple of years ago.

[Jcarbor]

So glad I got out of the firewood market, all the faf involved for such little end profit!

It’s a waste of time too many cash greedy people banging out wet shit . I bit the bullet and installed a biomass boiler to get rid of our wood waste, best 25 k I’ve ever spent, both my houses and barn toasty.

[Tilio-acerion]

39 minutes ago, Jcarbor said:

It’s a waste of time too many cash greedy people banging out wet shit . I bit the bullet and installed a biomass boiler to get rid of our wood waste, best 25 k I’ve ever spent, both my houses and barn toasty.

Well it’ll be interesting to see how much that goes on with these new regulations..? 

[Rough Hewn]

Have you considered burning coal?
 
All the fun of logs, but with none of the storage or seasoning issues.

From logs to coal is 100,000,000 years minimum.
Makes 12-18 months seem short for drying wood[emoji848]

[Bolt]

3 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

From logs to coal is 100,000,000 years minimum.
Makes 12-18 months seem short for drying wood

That's nice.

 

Would the moisture content after 100,000,000 years be below 20%?

 

 

 

 

[Rough Hewn]

That's nice.
 
Would the moisture content after 100,000,000 years be below 20%?
 
 
 
 

Absolutely. 100%. I'll personally guarantee it.[emoji6]

[Bolt]

Just now, Rough Hewn said:

Absolutely. 100%. I'll personally guarantee it.

Cool.  In that case, I'm happy to wait.

 

:- )

[renewablejohn]

30 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

From logs to coal is 100,000,000 years minimum.
Makes 12-18 months seem short for drying wood

Actually takes about 30 seconds from woodchip to charcoal with moisture content of approx 3%.  Far better than waiting for wood to dry.

[openspaceman]

13 hours ago, Squaredy said:

I remember reading a little while back that electricity generation efficiency from fossil fuels is typically around 66% and that distribution losses are similar, hence total efficiency only around 33%.

it's been nigh on fifty years since I did any courses on electrical engineering but it depends what type of generation you are meaning, as I said the average losses between generator and consumer are 7+%.

 

Most coal fired station back then were high temperature steam turbines and managed a bit less than 40% but the generators  had low operating and maintenance costs. Some standby plants were diesel and had better thermal conversion efficiency but high O&M costs, then there were peaking plants which cost a fortune to run, often open cycle gas turbines based on early jet engines, at a time when the consumer paid 7p/kWh these cost about 50p/kWh to run. When the internal fire museum acquired one of these after 30 years in service, from Princetown IIRC, it had only a few hundred hours on the clock.

 

Nowadays the best combined cycle gas turbine sets, which supply the bulk of our fossil fueled power manage just short of 60% thermal conversion efficiency.

 

We still get about 15% of our power from our nuclear power (plus quite a lot we import from France which is mostly nuclear powered) and these have a lower thermal conversion efficiency than coal fired as the boilers are run more conservatively .

13 hours ago, Squaredy said:

 Which is the main reason electricity is so much more expensive than gas or oil.  Is this not the case?

That's a marketing thing, power generators pay way less for gas then we do and most of their costs are in sales and distribution.

 

I currently pay about a quarter of the price of a kWh of electricity for my gas but they do different jobs.

[Rough Hewn]

Actually takes about 30 seconds from woodchip to charcoal with moisture content of approx 3%.  Far better than waiting for wood to dry.

How?
Napalm?
[emoji848]